to join heart and hand in the reformation and restoration of their old ancestral Churches, after the type of our English Reformation. 'Building up on primitive lines' is the order of thought now, rather than breaking up after American precedents. I talked over very plainly and friendlily with the Americans themselves in every place I visited the chief points of distinction between our line of action and tone of counsels from theirs, and I was surprised to find how temperately and appreciatively they received what was said, and appeared quite to be of opinion in the main that if practicable (and they admitted that it was not so impracticable as once), the ultimate end to be aimed at should be the restoration of the old, and only the extracting and supplanting of what was distinctly corrupt, false, and degrading. I must confess that I set out on this journey with a very unjust prejudice against the American Protestants, but on all hands, and not merely from statements of their own, I find witness borne to the remarkable stirring and awakening which their schools and public services and ministries, with the large circulation of the Holy Scriptures, have brought about among several of the Churches of the East, most of all among the Armenians and Nestorians, as your Grace is aware; the laity rather than the priests being in the forefront of this revival and resuscitation of the coal which was left. I find also the feeling of the Americans towards the Church of England not only far less intolerant but far more friendly than I supposed, and a greater readiness on their part to regard collateral efforts on the Church of England lines, by planting down schools and teachers where such help is invited at a few head-quarters of Christians in the East, as being in co-operation with them rather than in any sense antagonism, though probably in America one must not look for such large-mindedness. I was quite unprepared for the respectful welcome accorded to an English bishop who yet spoke his mind freely, while appreciating to the full what in their great work should have its meed of praise and grateful acknowledgement. From the chief pastor of the American Church at Oorfa (brought up at Basle, a practical man, full of sound, sensible, solidly formed judgement) I learned that among the 12,000 non-papal Armenians in Oorfa there is not a family where he is not welcomed, and where he does not find the word of God read and valued in the houses of the people, and that by the express permission and hearty encouragement of the Armenian bishop and his clergy, who bid them take and read them freely, as quite in harmony with their Church teaching in all serious and important matters; and it is the same with the Syrians and Jacobites. Only the Latins forbid its purchase in Oorfa, yet strange to say the Latin priests and nuns at Oorfa received me with most gracious attentions, and would have put for me a bishop's seat by the altar, only I felt LETTERS TO ARCHBISHOP BENSON 263 obliged to decline it. Theirs is the only Arabic service in Oorfa (a real wonderful city, worthy of the old Edessa of Abgarus, and the ancient Syrian missions to China and India), the rest being in Turkish, Armenian, Syriac. One's heart's instincts involuntarily uttered the desire and almost prayer-Could it but be that in God's good providence a St. Sulpice college, after the type of that of MM. Olier and Trouson, could be established under joint management of Armenian and English clergymen, though with the control of studies in the hands of the latter, either at Diarbekir or at Oorfa, the only places unoccupied by the Americans except by their native teachers, and occupying such fine central positions, the latter most especially, how rich and abiding might be the blessing to the Armenian and old Syrian Church of the future. At present too the Latin Church is very weak in both those places, though it has made an entrance and will never loose its hold. But I have no idea that any such request has ever been addressed to your Grace from any of the leaders of the Armenian Church, and until such an appeal should reach you I can well believe that your Grace would not find it in your will or power to make any initiatory movement forwards towards the achievement of such a result. The St. Sulpice priests' training college, with a firstclass school attached, would seem to be the one pivot and centre of such hopeful action as would touch the weak and sore points, would grapple with the very dearth and death (by the help, present and ready, of God's most blessed Spirit) which has so long afflicted and held in bondage these venerable and honoured branches of Christendom. At any rate, the suggestion might possibly occupy an hour's consideration of your Board (or Council) of Missions. . . . Besides Oorfa and Diarbekir the one other place weakly occupied by the Americans is Mosul, but the Latin Church holds it in strength and supported with pillars which seem inébranlable indeed. Oorfa might be a bit of Bristol planted down in the wastes near the Euphrates' banks! To stand over the tomb of the great St. Ephraem, conducted there by the good Armenian bishop who showed me over his own cathedral, was no small privilege. I am ashamed of having written at such length. Your Grace can scarcely find it possible to have it read to you in person, but you may find it possible to hand it over to your committee on the Oriental Church question. I remain with deepest respect and grateful regard, Your Grace's servant and brother in Christ, THOMAS V. FRENCH (Bishop)'. 1 Some extracts from this letter have been already printed in Appendix A to the Board of Missions Report on Persia, Turkish Empire, and Eastern Churches, S.P.C.K. 1894. How far the bishop's actual suggestions are practicable at the present moment it is not for the writer to determine, but it is plain to any man of education that if these Churches of the East are to be helped to a self-reformation, it must be on the lines of these proposals; and further it is manifest that if a door be opened, the experiment is one well worth a trial: for the revival of these ancient Churches might be as life to the dead to the surrounding Mussulmans, and they are not to be approached effectually in any other way. The early missionary story of these regions awakens hope of latent possibilities that may recall the golden days of Nisibis, Edessa, and Bagdad1. 1 Those who require further information on these interesting topics will find it in the Reports of the Archbishop's Assyrian Mission, S.P.C.K.; Cutts' Christians under the Crescent in Asia, specially chapters xv and xl; Curzon's Persia, vol. i. pp. 535 sq.; Mrs. Bishop's Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan; the works of Dwight and Dr. Badger, representing the earliest modern efforts of America and England for the improvement of these Churches; the article 'Greek Church,' in Chambers' Cyclopaedia, by His Excellency Joannes Gennadios; and the standard 'Church Histories.' CHAPTER XXIII. TEN MONTHS IN SYRIA AND PALESTINE. I hope from God with a hope that shall not be disappointed; And no Teacher but He, and no Beloved one. Do Thou (God) inspire me to talk of Thee all my life long, THE bishop spent ten months in Syria and Palestine, recruiting his health, and studying colloquial Arabic, and making himself acquainted with all the varied mission works, especially the British Syrian schools of Mrs. Mott, which from this time forward occupied a large place in his thoughts and prayers. This circle of some thirty schools was established and carried on by the energy of three devoted Christian sisters, Miss Lloyd, Mrs. Bowen Thompson, and Mrs. Mott. It appealed to the bishop's sympathies 'as England's grandest and most steadily perpetuated contribution to the redress of the atrocious wrongs perpetrated on the Syrian Christians by Druses and Moslems in 1860,' the date at which the effort first began; and 'as alone of the various mission institutions he had met with seeming to touch the large Mohammedan communities to any appreciable extent'; and lastly, as almost the only Church of England agency at work in north Syria, and itself in danger of being lost to the Church. 'The C. M. S.,' the Bishop said in a letter to the Bishop of Exeter, May 31, 1888, 'thought it their duty (I could wish they were party to no such contracts and compromises to make a delimitation of north Syria and south Syria, by which the north should be American and Presbyterian, and the south Church of England. Still Mr. and Mrs. Mott did not relinquish their hold on Mrs. Thompson's schools, so far at least as this, that Church of England services have been preserved in them all these years, and the Church Catechism also taught in most, if not all, of them. But there being no Church of England missionaries or chaplains, and the Americans being of overpowering strength and determination, well supported and freshly reinforced continually with the best American blood in the shape of learned professors of the Caird and Chalmers type, most often a Presbyterian preacher has given one service on successive Sundays, using I believe the English liturgy in good part. The Motts, though most tolerant and free from all bigotry, desire that after their deaths the schools should still be in Church of England hands.' The bishop was very anxious to prevent the closing of this one lip of witness which the Church of England has been permitted to open in north Syria.' He persuaded the Bishop of Exeter to take interest in the work, and act as president of the Home Council; he consented himself to become a vice-president, on condition that the Church of England service should be said once every Sunday in all the schools; he wrote to the Record, appealing successfully for funds to wipe off a deficit of £1,000 in the current expenses; and he personally inspected and examined every school but one in the whole circuit. This last work also he found most useful in his Arabic studies. 'One has to sink oneself very much,' he said, 'to catch the smallest details of the people's daily talk, getting children to prattle away around one to become familiar with what is simplest and comes soonest on the lips. I wish I could put myself into a school class and learn as a child.' Syria and Palestine is familiar and well-beaten ground to travellers and tourists, but still the letters of a man so well equipped with Oriental learning, and moved with such strong missionary impulses, and brought by his ecclesiastical position in contact with the highest dignitaries of Eastern Churches, will have a special interest; and even those who have themselves gone over the same ground may not be sorry to retrace it in such company. Until October he lingered in the Lebanon, at first at Beyrout, and then at |